Bitter Creek (6 page)

Chapter 11

“THEY LEFT FROM NEAR HELENA,”
said Pidgeon. “Amalie remembered she went with her mother and father and brother to a Catholic cathedral, a big stone building in a city built on hills near the mountains. …”

Du Pré nodded. He steered round a dead deer sprawled half across the lane.

“They were over the river,” said Pidgeon, “looking at the map, and they went to the west of the Bear Paws and then along the front. It must have happened near where Chief Joseph surrendered.”

“She did not say anything about mountains,” said Du Pré.

“From that side they don't look like mountains and it was winter and she said it was foggy,” said Pidgeon. “They went to the cathedral for Christmas Mass. She remembers that, and she would have remembered moving a long distance, because it was cold and hard to do. …”

Du Pré nodded.

“It makes sense,” said Pidgeon. “They would have tried to get to Fort Belknap, where they would have known people. Now if we just knew where, exactly, Pershing and his men were day by day. …”

“Patchen is looking,” said Du Pré. “In Washington.” He roared up the long rise to the bench road and he turned left and speeded up.

The turnoff to Bart's big house was a few miles down. Du Pré stopped and Pidgeon got out and checked the mailbox. She came back with an armload of envelopes.

“Ninety percent crap,” she said, dumping the pile in the backseat.

Du Pré pulled up to the main house.

Bart was standing out on the porch, holding a glass of soda.

Pidgeon got out and she fished the mail from the backseat. She pecked Bart on the cheek as she went by.

“GIT, YOU SON OF A BITCH!” Booger Tom yelled. He was out of sight behind the machine shed.

“I think the finest thing I may have ever done is get those water buffalo,” said Bart. “It has taken years from Booger Tom's face. He looks barely forty, though quite purple most of the time.”

“GODDAMNIT, YA CUD-CHEWING BASTARD, GIT OUTTA THERE,” Booger Tom yelled.

“So,” said Bart, “when do you take her to see if you can find that place? I will help in any way that I can, just don't ask me to go and dig up bones. …”

Du Pré laughed.

“You and Benny,” he said. “He has to call me, he has someone dead in a traffic accident.”

“I understand,” said Bart.

Du Pré drove back down the foothills to Toussaint. He parked at the saloon.

Madelaine was inside, sitting on her stool behind the bar, looking intently at her beadwork. “Du Pré,” she said, “that poor old woman is living, all those savages?”

“They love her,” said Du Pré. “They are not very savage.”

“Amalie is from another time,” said Madelaine. “They want to know about that. All those kids want to know things, they are a good bunch.”

“I like them,” said Du Pré, “farther away I am. Maybe one day they pack up, tear me to pieces like wolves. …”

“You love them too much,” said Madelaine. “So many of them, it is hard for you. …” She laughed.

Du Pré went behind the bar, mixed himself a ditch. “I take her tomorrow, we go and look where I think she was,” said Du Pré.

“How you figure that out?” said Madelaine.

“Maybe I don't,” said Du Pré, “but we got to start.”

“Long time gone,” said Madelaine.

“That Pidgeon, she ask good questions,” said Du Pré.

“They live on Moccasin Flat?” said Madelaine. “Helena, where the airport is now?”

Du Pré nodded.

“I don't know,” said Madelaine. “Didn't used, live there winter, too much wind, went to Great Falls.”

Du Pré nodded.

“What was the weather, 1910?” said Madelaine.

Du Pré looked at her.

“Pallas find it on the computer,” said Madelaine. “She find anything on the computer.”

Du Pré looked at his watch.

“I be here another three hours,” said Madelaine.

Du Pré drove to Jacqueline's and he parked and walked round to the backyard. Amalie was not there, but Pallas was, sitting in a folding chair under the lilacs. She had a book open on her lap. “You are not riding your horse,” said Du Pré.

“Little warm for him now,” said Pallas. “Lourdes and I, we ride later; I am studying a little …”

Du Pré glanced at the book.

“Poetry,” said Pallas, “different people. Some of it is good. …”

Du Pré laughed. “Amalie?” he said.

“She is sleeping. She got very tired. She is very old, Granpère, I don't know I want to get that old. …”

“Maybe she stay, see that this story is told,” said Du Pré.

“Maybe,” said Pallas.

“Can you find weather, 1910, for here, for Helena, last two weeks of January?” said Du Pré.

“Sure,” said Pallas.

“Maybe tomorrow I take Amalie, we go and look, see if we can find something,” said Du Pré.

Pallas nodded.

“I think maybe it happened near Bear Paw, where Joseph …” said Du Pré.

“Maybe,” said Pallas, “I don't think you should go, tomorrow. I think we should talk, her, more first …”

Du Pré looked at her.

“She is ver' old, will get ver' tired …” said Pallas.

Du Pré nodded.

“Me, I am tired too, Granpère,” said Pallas. “I don't want, go back there, that school. …”

Du Pré nodded.

“It is a fine thing, study with those people,” said Pallas, “but I am there with other freaks. I am not like Maria, I don't want that. …”

“You don't have to,” said Du Pré.

“Sometimes I just cry in my room,” said Pallas. “Can't ride a horse there anywhere, there is no where. Everybody is standing on where. Too many people. …”

Du Pré laughed.

“I first go, I am happy, I am so smart so I am special,” said Pallas, “but it is not my place, not my people, what will I do with it? Go some place, where I don't like it, study, maybe teach, something? I like it here. I miss spring. Fall. We went, hunted antelope once, remember?”

Du Pré laughed. “You shoot him, long ways,” he said.

“Bart he has been so nice, I don't want to hurt him, his feelings,” said Pallas.

Du Pré shook his head.

“Bart wants you be happy,” said Du Pré. “He don't care where you are happy.”

“He spends all that money, me,” said Pallas.

“He has money,” said Du Pré. “He knows what unhappy means. …”

“Yes,” said Pallas.

“So don't go back,” said Du Pré. “Bart have somebody get your stuff, bring it here.”

Jacqueline came down the back steps with some iced tea and glasses on a tray. “So you coming back,” she said. “That is good, I worry. …”

“Me?” said Pallas.

“You put on the I-am-so-happy,” said Jacqueline. “I am your mother, I know when you are lying. …”

“It is all right?” said Pallas.

“Yes,” said Du Pré and Jacqueline.

“Professor Goudge will be mad,” said Pallas.

“So?” said Jacqueline.

“You are right,” said Pallas. “He tell me I owe, my brain to the world.”

“Him, full of shit,” said Jacqueline. “Him just want to say, ‘see, that is my student there.'”

Pallas laughed. “Yes,” she said.

“Moondog, he don't like it there, bite the other horses, Bart has to fly him back here,” said Jacqueline. “Maybe you come before you start biting people.”

“I want to help, this story, Amalie,” said Pallas.

“It is ver' sad story,” said Du Pré.

“Whites do this,” said Pallas.

Du Pré looked at her.

“People do this,” he said. “All people do this, it is under the skin in the heart. …”

Pallas looked at her grandfather for a long time. Then she nodded.

Chapter 12

PATCHEN GOT OUT
of the small SUV, one of the new run of smaller four-wheel drives. He had put two large containers on the top, black plastic, shaped to the wind. He had a pale brown leather glove on his artificial hand and wore mirrored sunglasses.

Du Pré held the door of the saloon open for him. Patchen nodded and he went on in. Chappie was sitting at the bar. He got up and he and Patchen hugged.

“So they throw you out?” said Chappie.

“Yup,” said Patchen. “Found some stuff, but there everything you do is on a computer. This bunch of idiots we've got for a government is so paranoid now they don't like anyone looking for anything. I ‘lacked proof of legitimate historical interest.'”

“Huh?” said Chappie.

“I was not there as a qualified historian. I am a wounded soldier, from their war that is not going as they thought it would. They are obsessed that one or another of us will say what a bunch of incompetent jerks they are,” said Patchen.

“Everybody knows that already,” said Madelaine. She had put down her beadwork, and was looking angry.

“But I did find out quite a lot,” said Patchen, “and as I expected, having had dealings with these fools before, there is someone who is not yet of interest to them who promised to keep looking. …”

Chappie and Du Pré and Madelaine looked at him.

Patchen began, “Pershing and two companies of the Tenth Cavalry were sent at the request of the governor to remove ‘undesirable noncitizens' from two places in Montana. They began on the twenty-first of January 1910, and they started shipping Métis out the next day from Helena, north to the Great Northern Line. They rounded up many in Great Falls. They sent the loaded cars out on the twenth-eighth. …”

Madelaine pointed to a glass.

“Oh, please,” said Patchen, “a beer, any draft is fine. …”

“Eight days,” said Chappie, “and it was over.”

“Yes,” said Patchen, “but I found one odd note on one report. A Lieutenant Albert, who was sent with six troopers to apprehend some undesirable noncitizens fleeing through remote country. …”

“What did he do?” said Du Pré.

“I couldn't find his report,” said Patchen. “It should have been there. It was a separate event. …” Du Pré nodded.

“And I could not find the date when Albert and his men were sent. Which is very odd, since such departures should have been noted,” said Patchen.

“Favor to somebody,” said Du Pré. “Amalie's people were running, they kill and eat couple cows. …”

“Big rancher,” said Madelaine.

“What I don't know, too,” said Patchen, “is why they were classed as noncitizens. Indians were wards of the government then; it was pretty standard.”

“Not Métis,” said Du Pré. “They don't belong to either Canada or America then. Many don't belong until 1957.”

“Because they weren't a tribe?” said Patchen. “They were half-breeds?”

“Mixed-bloods,” said Du Pré.

“And that's all that I found, until I was more or less asked to leave before I found myself under arrest.”

“Arrest?” said Madelaine.

“The charming fellow who came to my apartment said something about being ordered to active service in a place I would not like,” said Patchen. “I resigned my commission the next day.”

Susan Klein came in, and Madelaine gathered up her little plastic envelopes of beads and her threads and the piece of soft doeskin she was working in a fine beaded pattern. “So,” said Madelaine, “you have not met Amalie and now you will. She is at Jacqueline's and she will be having supper, an hour or so, you come, too.”

Patchen smiled.

“I'd love to meet her,” he said. And then he looked sad. He walked outside, and he was there waiting beside his little SUV when the others came out.

“I ride with him,” said Chappie. He walked across the street and the two men got in Patchen's car. Du Pré and Madelaine got in her little station wagon.

Jacqueline's house rang with shouts. The children were at war over some thing or other.

Du Pré glared at the place.

“You are being old fart,” said Madelaine.

“I am old fart,” said Du Pré, “ver' old fart, have to herd grandchildren. I need whip, chair. …”

Chappie and Patchen got out of Patchen's little SUV, and they began to walk toward the house, too.

Kids of all sizes came out of doors or around corners. Little Gabriel, named for Du Pré, aimed a kick at Nepthele. The boys fell to the ground, yelling.

Marisa and Berne followed. The girls were twelve and growing up—long-limbed twins, hair braided, both dressed in jeans and boots, both with hats that had chin-strings.

“We are going riding, Pallas and Lourdes,” said Marisa or Berne—Du Pré could not tell them apart—“so that is four gone, Granpère, Gabriel and Nepthele kill each other, so half of us are no trouble. …”

“It is great help,” said Du Pré. “I thank you.” The two girls then ran to him and they hugged.

“Amalie is wonderful,” said Marisa or Berne, “lots of stories. She is ver' sharp. …”

“Where are you riding to?” said Du Pré.

“Cooper Creek Canyon,” said Marisa or Berne.

Du Pré looked at the sky. “Be careful,” he said. “Rain hour before dark. …”

The girls looked at each other. “Thank you, Granpère,” they said. They went through the hedge of lilacs to the horse barn. Du Pré and Madelaine walked round to the back of the house.

Pallas and Lourdes were there, both in their teens now, young women. Old Amalie was sitting in a camp chair; the girls squatted on their heels. Pallas got up. “We look again tomorrow,” she said.

Amalie nodded. Her eyes were small and very dark in her old face.

Pallas and Lourdes came to Du Pré and Madelaine. “Pallas find a way, get pictures of the land,” said Lourdes.

“It is on the computer,” said Pallas.

“She show some to Amalie,” said Lourdes.

“She say she doesn't see anything,” said Pallas. “I am showing her square buttes. …”

“Good,” said Du Pré. “You be careful, it will rain, don't get caught.”

They went off toward the horse barn. Chappie and Patchen came slowly, shyly up to old Amalie, small and shrunken in her chair.

Du Pré got a couple folding chairs for them, and then he and Madelaine went in the house.

Jacqueline was fixing a huge pot of stew.

Du Pré sniffed.

“Buffalo,” Jacqueline said. “Got nice stew meat, Martin place.”

Du Pré nodded. The Martins were the largest landholders near Toussaint. They owned tens of thousands of acres and they leased many more.

They were trying to raise pureblood buffalo.

But very few Americans wanted to eat meat from a symbol.

Jacqueline added spices from big plastic bottles, some ground, some leaf. The bubbling stew smelled rich. The telephone rang. Jacqueline wiped her hands on her apron and she lifted the phone up and put it to her ear.

“Yes, he is here,” she said. She handed the phone to Du Pré.

“Du Pré?” said Benny Klein. “Lissen, I'm calling on my cell. Four feds were just here, the office in Cooper. They're looking for the old woman and they're looking for you. …”

“OK,” said Du Pré.

“I told them, far as I knew you was in Toussaint, since if I lied that'd blow back,” said Benny.

“OK,” said Du Pré, “we take care of it, thank you.” Du Pré went out back to where Chappie and Patchen were talking to Amalie.

The old woman was lost in her story, and she did not look up.

Du Pré bent over, touched her lips with his finger.

“People are looking for you,” he said. “We got to get you out of here.”

Amalie nodded. She stood up.

“Where to?” said Chappie. “There are lots of possibilities.”

Du Pré thought.

“Take her to Bart's, tell Pidgeon what is going on,” he said.

The old woman went off walking strongly between the two maimed young men.

Du Pré went back in the house.

“Get the kids, tell them people are coming looking for Amalie,” said Du Pré.

Madelaine and Jacqueline nodded.

“Federal people. That was Benny,” said Du Pré.

“OK,” said Jacqueline, “they don't say anything, I tell them they will take her away. …”

“I go after the girls,” said Madelaine. “They are not gone too long.”

“Where are you, Du Pré?” said Jacqueline.

“I go the saloon,” said Du Pré, “be helpful.”